


a reunion

by Rhiannon87



Category: Campaign (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Yearning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 14:09:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15487551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: Months after he leaves her that voicemail on Roche, Sian contacts him. (Spoilers through episode 98.)





	a reunion

**Author's Note:**

> James D'Amato came into my house and attacked me, personally, with sad heartbroken guilt-ridden clone feelings. This is my return shot.

The first time she contacts him, Bacta thinks that it might actually kill him.

It’s been months since Roche and Sadet and that stupid, hopeless voicemail. Months of running and fighting, of a return to Kamino that nearly broke him, of watching Leenik spiral further and further into a place where no one can reach. Of Tamlin… of Tamlin getting worse. He’s still the same sweet kid that Bacta’s trying so hard to take care of, but there’s something twisted and dark underneath his skin. Bacta can’t help, and Tamlin doesn’t want to go with Aava, even if she was an option any of them were willing to consider.

So when the message comes in, encrypted so thoroughly he has no idea what it is, he goes to Leenik. He’s still the one who’s best with computers out of all them, even if he rarely brings it up these days. He prefers his fist and sword to everything else.

“Maybe it’s Ahsoka?” Bacta guesses, pacing back and forth, thinking out loud to keep himself distracted while Leenik works. “It’s been ages since we’ve heard from her, maybe she--”

“Who’s See-ann?” Leenik asks, squinting at the datapad. “Shawn? How do you--”

Bacta snatches the datapad from his hand and rushes to his room without answering, his heart pounding so hard his ribs ache. He takes a few deep breaths, sits down on his bed, and slowly lowers his eyes to the screen.

It’s from her number, the one he’d saved, and it doesn’t mention his voicemail at all. It’s just coordinates, a planet and a time and a password, and an order to come alone.

“We have to go to Skrine,” Bacta says as he walks into the cockpit, about half an hour later, once he can walk and talk and breathe normally again. “Now.”

“Uh, since when do you tell us what to do?” Tryst replies, not removing his feet from the dashboard. “I’m the Captain, Mister Bossy Man.”

“Tryst.” Bacta swallows hard, and something in his tone must actually catch the pilot’s attention, because Tryst turns and looks at him, really looks. He can walk and talk and breathe, yeah, but his hands are still shaking, and he’s pretty sure his eyes are still red-rimmed and bloodshot. “It’s-- it’s someone who can help Tamlin.” That’s what matters, what really matters. Not him and however he might feel.

Tryst stares for several long seconds, then shrugs. “All right, all right,” he says and swings his feet to the floor. “Don’t get your briefs in a bunch.”

He hides in his room for most of the trip. Rehearses what he’s going to say--he writes out kriffing  _ speeches _ , and then deletes them all. Tries on half the clothes he owns trying to figure out what to wear, how to look. Can’t wear the armor, the beskar’gam he was so proud of, because it’s bad enough that he’s already got the face of the men who tried to kill her. He doesn’t need to wear their armor, too.

In the end, it’s just him, in the clothes he was wearing when he got the message, pistol hidden under his jacket, datapad clutched in his hand like a lifeline. He keeps checking the message to make sure it’s still there, it’s still real. Not some kind of hopeful, desperate hallucination.

Bacta finally emerges when they come in to land. “So, what’s the mission?” Lyn asks, looking up at him expectantly as he walks into the kitchen.

Tamlin’s sitting next to her, feet swinging back and forth, his tiny face furrowed with a worried frown. It’s a familiar look, one he probably learned from Bacta, and Bacta’s not sure how he feels about it. The kid’s not even six yet, he shouldn’t be looking like that. “What’s wrong, Uncle Bacta?”

“Ah.” Nothing. Everything. “It’s just… this isn’t really a mission. Or. It’s a solo mission. I’m going by myself.”

“Uh, no, you’re not--” Lyn begins, and he cuts her off before she can really get going.

“Yes, I am. If any of you show up--and I mean this, if you sneak off and try to follow me, she will know, and she will spook, and I will lose her again.” His voice cracks at the end, and he swallows hard, pulls himself back under control. “You all stay on the ship. I’m going to the meeting alone.”

“Who’re you meeting?” Tryst asks as he strolls in, heading for the wine rack.

(“It’s ten in the morning,” Lyn mutters.

“Five o’clock somewhere!”)

Bacta sighs. “She’s… Sian was my… my general,” he finally says.

“Oh, the lady you’ve got tattooed on your chest like a total creeper?” Leenik asks.

Another sigh, this one far more irritated. “Yes. That’s her.” The tattoo had seemed like a good idea at the time, though he’d been shellshocked and grieving. Certainly not ever planning on having to explain it to the person it memorialized, and kriff that was going to be awkward if she ever… no, no, nope, not even going down that line of thinking. “If this message is from her, then I think… she’s a Jedi. Was a Jedi. She can help Tamlin. Teach him to use the Force.” Steer him away from the Dark Side. Save him, protect him, in all the ways Bacta couldn’t.

“One hour,” Lyn says firmly, holding up a finger. “We’ll give you one hour, and then we’re coming after you.”

“Three,” Bacta retorts. An hour’s barely enough time for him to explain everything.

Tryst snorts, not looking up from uncorking the bottle. “C’mon, Bacta, you’re not fooling anyone, you’re not gonna need  _ that _ long.”

Bacta ignores him, as usual. Lyn frowns. “Two hours. If we don’t hear from you after two hours, we’re gonna come looking for you. Okay?"

“Okay.” It’s what he’d insist on, if it was one of the others.

Now he just has to go. Walk out of the ship, catch a cab, head to the meetup. See what’s waiting for him.

His feet stay rooted to the ground, keeping him frozen for long enough that it’s awkward. Bacta clears his throat and looks at the datapad again, reads the message, as if he doesn’t have it memorized.  _ You wanted this. You wanted to find her, you’ve wanted to find her for five and a half years, now kriffing  _ go.

There’s a weight against his legs, and he looks down to see Tamlin hugging him around the knees. “You should get going, Uncle Bacta,” he says, with a bright smile and too-old eyes. “I don’t think she’s gonna wait very long.”

Bacta takes a deep breath, and nods, and bends down to give Tamlin a quick hug. “You’re probably right, buddy,” he says, then straightens up. “I’ll, uh. I’ll be back.”

The trip goes by too fast, and he’s climbing out of the cab in front of a dingy cantina before he’s managed to process that this is really happening. There’s some kind of bounty hunter academy here, and he has to fight the urge to flip his collar up as he steps inside. It makes sense that Sian would pick this place--she’s a bounty hunter too, now, these are her people. But he’s  _ incredibly _ wanted, and all it would take is one person here to recognize him to ruin everything.

The Aqualish behind the bar stares at him blankly as he approaches. “I’m, ah, supposed to meet a friend here,” Bacta says, heart pounding and mouth dry. “Seddwia?” One of the younglings in the group with Sian. One of the kids he’d saved.

The bartender nods, still looking bored, and waves a few tentacles over his shoulder. “Upstairs, second-to-last door on the right,” he says. “Want a drink?”

_ Force, yes. _ “No, no thanks,” Bacta says, already moving towards the stairs. It’s not a long hall at the top, and there aren’t very many doors between him and the one he needs. He stands outside for a solid minute, almost light-headed, before he manages to raise a hand and knock.

“‘s open,” a voice calls, female and muffled and maybe familiar but maybe not, maybe it’s just wishful thinking, maybe he’s about to open the door and get shot--

He opens the door.

It’s a small room, barely big enough for a table and four chairs. An orange-skinned Devaronian woman sits in one of them, blue eyes narrowed and a blaster pistol aimed at him. Her hair’s buzzed short, save for a strip of white along the top of her head, pulled into a simple knot, and there’s a new scar along her jaw. But for all the changes and years, it’s her. It’s actually her.

The door swooshes shut behind him, and he startles a little at the sound. Sian doesn’t blink, doesn’t waver in her aim at his chest. She looks him up and down a couple times, then frowns. “Take off your jacket.”

...all right, not exactly the first words he was hoping to hear from her, but he’s not going to argue. Bacta shrugs out of the jacket, lets it dangle from one hand as he waits. Her eyes go to his arms, to the lines of tattoos running from his hands up under his sleeves. He got the first batch after Geonosis, added more and more ink after every battle. She’d known him when his skin had been empty. One of the very few people still alive who had.

Sian lets out a slow, heavy breath, and finally lowers the blaster. “Bacta,” she says, disbelieving, and he has to bite his tongue to choke back a sob.

“I-I-I wasn’t… I d-didn’t think…” He swallows past the lump in his throat and tries again. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

She nods slowly. “Yeah,” she says softly. “I know.”

Right. She knows… a lot. He really  _ didn’t _ think he’d ever see her again. It was why he got the tattoo and wrote the letters and left her a message pouring out his grief and his guilt and his broken heart. Because part of him thought this would never happen, thought he’d never actually have to own up to any of it.

Bacta opens his mouth, but no words come out. There’s too much he wants to say, and he’s choking on all of it. He wants to beg for forgiveness and to tell her about Tamlin and to tell her he--how he feels, actually get the words out for once, but he can’t. He can’t say any of it.

Sian holsters the blaster and nods at the chair across from her. “How’d you find me?”

It takes a moment, but he makes himself move, only drops the jacket once as he tries to drape it over the back of the chair. “Um,” he starts, realizing belatedly that ‘I slept with your friend-slash-business-associate and stole your number from her comm’ probably isn’t the best answer to give. “I met someone who knows you--Rendezvous Valentine?”

“Oh. Yeah, Vous-Vous and I have done a couple jobs together.”

“I’ve, I’ve been traveling with her brother,” Bacta continues. “Got your contact info from her.” It’s not a lie. It’s just missing several crucial details.

Sian scoffs a little and leans back in her chair. “I didn’t know she had a brother.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m not surprised she wouldn’t talk about him. Tryst is... He’s a lot to deal with.” It’s just now dawning on him that if she agrees to help teach Tamlin, he’s going to have to introduce her to the crew. To Tryst and Leenik. That’s… okay, that’s something to worry about later. One thing at a time.

He takes a deep breath, and it’s only a little shaky when he exhales. “How did you… how did you survive?”

She purses her lips, a look that always meant she was unhappy, but it’s so achingly familiar that Bacta barely realizes he should apologize. And by the time he does, she’s started to answer. “I played dead. Used the Force to make them look elsewhere, just long enough to steal a ship and escape. I spent a year lying low, trying to find any other survivors.” Her expression twists, a bitter look he’s never seen before. “There was nothing. Just Kenobi’s damn message telling us to trust the Force. Look where that got us.”

“I think it got us here,” Bacta offers, his heart sinking. If she’s turned away from the Force--no. No, she can’t have, it’s too much a part of her, and she has to be able to help Tamlin. She has to. He doesn’t have any other options.

Sian shrugs, her gaze on the table between them. “So what about you?” she asks. “How did you end up here?”

Bacta exhales heavily and spares a moment to regret not getting that drink downstairs. “Ah. Well, I kind of have to start at the beginning. Which wasn’t long after--”  _ after I lost you _ \-- “after the end of the war.”

It takes a long time to tell her everything--and he does tell her everything. Meeting Tryst and Leenik and Grizelle and Tamlin, joining the Rebellion, losing Grizelle, Aava and Lyn and everyone and everything that’s happened. She just listens, mostly, asks questions here or there when he forgets to explain something. It feels somewhere between a mission debrief and a confession, and by the time he finishes his voice is shot and his throat is dry but he feels a little lighter, somehow.

“...and then I got your message, and…” Bacta shrugs and gestures a little at the room they’re in.

“Wow.” Sian’s eyes are wide as she stares at him. “I--I can’t believe you’re alive. After all that.”

He huffs out a laugh. “Honestly? Neither can I.”

She takes a breath to speak, only to freeze, a hand twitching towards her blaster, when his comm beeps at him. “Oh--uh, sorry, sorry, I need to--my crew’s gonna kick down the door if I don’t check in--” Bacta shoots her an apologetic look, then dials Lyn’s comm.

“Bacta! Oh, thank goodness, you had three more minutes before I dragged everyone out there looking for you.” Lyn’s voice goes a bit distant as she moves the comm away from her face. “He’s fine!”

“Did he and the chick on his chest do it yet?” Tryst shouts back, and Bacta wills himself  _ not _ to turn red.

“I’m not asking him that!” Lyn replies, then her voice returns to normal. “Sorry. Okay. So. You’re fine? Not in peril? Do you all have a code phrase for if you’re being held hostage and need a rescue?”

“We have six of them that we rotate through, you’ll have to ask Leenik what the current one is,” Bacta replies. “But yes, I’m fine. You all should stay on the ship, this place is crawling with bounty hunters.”

“No kidding.”

“I’m, uh, I’m gonna go,” Bacta says, glancing back at Sian, who’s listening to his end of the conversation with a faint smirk. “I’ll call when I’m on my way back, okay?”

“Okay. Be safe.”

He hangs up and puts his comm away. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She tilts her head to the side, studying him. “They care about you a lot, don’t they?”

“Yeah.” Bacta nods. “They have weird, sometimes kind of hostile ways of showing it, but they do.”

“And you care about them a lot, too.” That piercing gaze doesn’t waver. “Especially the kid. Tamlin?”

“Yeah. Yeah. He’s…” Bacta hesitates. He’s never said this to anyone, but he’s told Sian the rest of his secrets. What’s one more? “I’m probably never gonna have kids of my own, but Tamlin’s… I’m trying to raise him as best I can. And I have no idea what I’m doing, honestly, but I’m trying to do right by him. And that’s… that’s why I’ve been trying to find you. Ever since I found out you might be alive.”

She blinks at him, and he can see her closing off. “You think I can teach him?” she asks, crossing her arms. Bacta just nods again, his heart in his throat, and Sian lets out a sharp breath. “Even if I knew anything about Dathomir, which I don’t, I’ve barely used the Force in the last five years. It’s how I’ve kept myself alive.”

No. No, no,  _ no, _ this isn’t how it’s supposed to go, she has to help. He put all his faith in her again, just like he always had, and he thought he’d never find her but if he did, she’s supposed to help. She has to. “Sian, I--I don’t have any other options,” Bacta manages. “Or, well, the only other option is to hand him over to someone who serves the Empire, which isn’t an option at all, you know that. I need you. To help him.”

There’s a long pause while she stares. “That’s the only reason you tracked me down?”

He hates the way his heart leaps in his chest at all the possible implications of that question. “No,” he says. “And I think you know that.” He pauses for a second, then adds, “Also  _ you _ tracked  _ me _ down. Sort of.”

“Yeah, I guess I did.” Sian studies him for a few moments longer, and she must be able to read the question on his face, because she shakes her head a little and continues. “I might be ignoring the Force, but it doesn’t always ignore me,” she says. “I got your message. And I didn’t believe--I knew it was you, it had to be, you’re the only person who’d know some of those things. But I figured it was an Imperial trap. Looking to clean up.” 

She pauses, her jaw tight, and it hits Bacta that she lost everything on that day five years ago, too. “So I didn’t respond, and I tried not to think about it, and then I started having these dreams. Visions. About you, and this kid--Tamlin, I suppose. At first they were pretty good, making it seem like I’d have a padawan to train. But lately…” She trails off, shakes her head a little. “It’s still been about you, and Tamlin, but they’re not… they’ve all ended very badly.”

She’s sparing him the details, trying to protect him from whatever’s been plaguing her nightmares, but he needs to know. He needs to know what’s coming, if she won’t help. “What happens?”

“He kills you.” The words are flat, unquestionable fact, and Bacta goes cold. “Sometimes it’s an accident, he loses control. Sometimes he means to. Sometimes… sometimes he regrets it.”

“Oh.” Okay then. Great.

“Eventually, I got the hint, and decided to take the risk of reaching out.” She shrugs a little. “Even if it was just to get the dreams to stop.”

Bacta swallows hard. “So you know why I need your help. Why Tamlin needs your help.”

She closes her eyes for a long moment and shakes her head again, shoulders slumped. She’s been distant this whole time--it’s not like she was ever especially demonstrative, most of the Jedi weren’t--but this feels like the first time she’s actually opened up since he walked in the door. “I don’t think I can,” she admits. “I’d have to learn how to use the Force again while I was teaching him, and I--I don’t know if that’s going to be worse than nothing.”

“Will you try?” His hands are shaking again, and he presses them flat against the table to try to make them stop. “Just--Just a few weeks. And if it doesn’t work out--” If it doesn’t work out, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do, because she’s his only hope to save the closest thing he’ll ever have to a child of his own. “We’ll drop you off wherever you want to go. Just… please, Sian.”

She drops her gaze to the tabletop, and a few long, awful seconds drag past. “I need to think about it,” she finally says. “I need some time.”

Well, at least it’s not a no. Bacta nods. “Okay. Okay, yeah. That’s… yeah, that’s fine. Just--if you decide you can’t, or don’t want to, will you… will you tell me before you leave? I-I’d. I’d like to be able to say goodbye. This time.” Maybe finally say all the things he’s held onto for the last five years before losing her again.

“Oh, Bacta.” She reaches across the table and puts her hand on his, and his heart just straight-up stops. He’s a medical professional, he  _ really _ should be doing something about the fact that he’s going into cardiac arrest, but all he can do is stare at their hands. “Of course. I--I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He drags his eyes away from their hands (her hand on his, touching him for the first time in five and a half long years) to her face.

“For hurting you.” She gives him a small, sad smile. “It wasn’t entirely my fault, and it wasn’t entirely yours, either, but it happened. And I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “It’s--It’s fine, Sian, really. You had to protect yourself. I never expected…” For her to save him. For her to be alive. For her to come back. Just sitting here, in this tiny room of this dingy bar, with her hand on his, is more than he’d ever, ever hoped for.

She nods, and squeezes his hand briefly before taking hers back, and he has to choke back a gasp at the loss of contact. “We should…”

She tilts her head at the doorway. Bacta nods and slides his hands off the table. They never really stopped shaking, and now she knows. “Yeah. Yeah. Um. You’ll--you’ll be in touch?”

“By tomorrow,” she says. “I just need to think it over.”

“Yeah, of course, take as much time as you need.” She’s not moving, so Bacta guesses that he’s supposed to leave first. It takes a lot more effort than it should to stand and pull on his jacket, his mind racing, trying to figure out what to say before he leaves.

He looks at the door, takes half a step in that direction, then looks back at her. At Sian, his general, his Jedi, his friend, his… he’s not even sure what else she is to him, what she might be, but there’s a chance that he might get to find out. “I’m so glad you’re alive,” he says.

Sian stands as well and takes half a step towards him, and for a split-second he thinks she might hug him. It’s almost a relief when she doesn’t, because right now it feels like he might just drop dead on the spot if she did. He needs some time to process all of this, too. “I’m glad you’re alive, too,” she says, and while her smile’s still a small one, there’s nothing sad about it.

He smiles back, blinking away the stinging in his eyes, hope finally taking root in his chest. There’s a chance this might work out.

She nods at the door. “You should get going,” she prompts gently. “I’ll contact you tomorrow, I promise.”

“Okay. Okay. Talk to you soon.”

“Yeah.”

Bacta makes it out the door, down the stairs, out of the cantina, and into the alley beside it before he cracks. It’s just--it’s too much, relief and hope and guilt and heartbreak and regret all mixed together, and he presses a hand to his eyes as he slumps against the cantina wall. He can’t do this here, it’s not safe, he knows that, but even so it takes a few minutes to pull himself back together enough for the trip home.

“Uncle Bacta!” Tamlin charges at him as soon as he steps off the landing ramp, and Bacta crouches down at the last second to scoop him up. “Did you meet her? Is she gonna help?”

Bacta hugs him tight for a second, then shifts him over so he’s balancing Tamlin on his hip. “I did, and I don’t know yet,” he replies. Tamlin’s face falls into a truly dramatic pout, and Bacta chuckles in spite of himself. “C’mon. Let’s find everybody else, and I’ll tell you what happened.” Mostly. Sort of. Leaving out all the complicated and overwhelming emotions.

“...so she’ll contact me tomorrow, and we’ll see what happens,” he concludes, after an explanation that feels far too short for how much it has the potential to change things.

“And if she decides to train him, she’ll be living on the ship, right?” Leenik asks.

Bacta sighs. “Unfortunately for her, yes.”

“Why’s that unfortunate!?”

“Because I don’t want to inflict the two of you on people that I like,” he retorts. Tryst feigns offense--or maybe it’s real offense, it’s hard to tell sometimes--but Leenik just perks up.

“Oh, so you  _ liiiiiiike _ her,” he says.

“For kriff’s sake,” Bacta mutters, causing Tamlin to gasp and dart across the kitchen for the swear bucket. (It began life as a jar, but that filled up within a day. So they repurposed a wheeled bucket that Bacta’s pretty sure was meant for mopping.) “You can’t do this with her, all right?” he asks, pulling a credit chit out of his pocket to toss into the bucket when Tamlin pushes it over.

“Do what?” Tryst asks, and this time there’s no doubt about how fake his innocent act is.

“This! The matchmaking thing, I know you two have made plans already--”

Leenik whips out his own datapad and slams it down on the table. “We’ve ranked a list of most to least effective scenarios--are clones very resistant to cold? It’s important for the ‘locked in a freezer’ one.”

Lyn covers her face with her hand and heaves a sigh. Bacta scowls. “No. I’m vetoing the matchmaking.”

“Uh, we are not on a mission, vetoes don’t--”

“Yes, yes we are!” Bacta says, even as he frantically scrambles for something to back up that claim. “It’s the--the mission of Tamlin learning to use the Force. That’s a mission. And you’re not allowed to do any matchmaking for me or Sian while that mission is happening.”

The better part of the next hour is spent arguing about whether or not that counts as a mission, how long missions can last (years, they learn, thanks to Lyn’s historical citations), the semantics of what ‘learning to use the Force’ means and whether or not that applies only to direct lessons, with a long tangent into what kind of evidence is admissible in court. But Bacta manages to get them to accept his veto and promise not to try any matchmaking schemes. They’re going to do other things, he’s certain of it, but he thinks he might have headed off the worst of it.

Not that any of it will matter if she decides she can’t or won’t help.

The group scatters, eventually: Leenik, Tony, and Tamlin all head off to the dojo to play their version of tag (which consists of Tony and Tamlin chasing each other while Leenik shouts out increasingly bizarre rule changes), and Tryst heads into town to check out the nightlife, brushing off remarks that it’s still early afternoon.

“Are you okay?” Lyn asks as Bacta heads for the sink. There’s a few dishes left from breakfast, and cleaning up is something to do. He has a lot of hours to fill between now and whenever Sian reaches out again.

“Yeah,” he replies automatically. Then he thinks about it for a second. “No. I don’t know yet.”

Lyn sighs and follows him to the sink. “She means a lot to you.”

He just nods and turns on the water. It’s not just how he feels about Sian, it’s… being around her made him feel like a person, a real person. Wipe away everything else, and she’d still be one of the most important people in the galaxy to him, for that alone.

When he doesn’t say anything else, Lyn reaches up and squeezes his shoulder before stepping away. “I hope it works out,” she says. “For you, and for Tamlin, and because it’ll be  _ so nice _ to have someone else sort of reasonable on the ship.”

Bacta frowns at that as Lyn walks off, trying to decide if he’s included in the count of reasonable people. He probably is. He has to be. He’s very reasonable, especially compared to the rest of the crew.

The rest of the day drags by in agonizing slowness. Bacta cleans all his weapons, and his armor, and his room, and most of the public areas of the ship. He reorganizes his medkit three times. He tries to convince Lyn to let him clean  _ her _ weapons, which she politely but firmly refuses. He tries to think about what it’ll be like, having Sian on the ship, where she’ll stay and how she’ll get along with everyone and what she’ll teach Tamlin. He tries not to think about it so he doesn’t get his hopes up.

He tells Tamlin bedtime stories and sits by his bedside long after he’s fallen asleep. If Sian doesn’t help, what’s his next move? What other options are there? Nothing comes to mind, and all he can think about is Sian’s dreams.  _ He kills you. _ Bacta can’t let that happen--not for his own sake, but for Tamlin’s. He can’t let this sweet, smart, reckless, impulsive kid end up like that. He deserves better.

Nighttime passes even more slowly. Normally Bacta likes that, enjoys the quiet of the ship once everyone else is asleep. But now it’s just more hours to wait. Not that he has another option--even if he did let himself try to sleep, he knows he wouldn't. And sitting in one of the gunnery bays, looking at the stars, is a little better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

Morning comes and goes. Bacta returns to his room and starts pacing, checking his comm every few minutes to make sure he hasn’t missed something. Even so, when the message finally comes, he fumbles the comm so badly that it goes skittering off under the bed and he has to use a hangar to sweep it back out again.

It’s another short message, just three words.  _ Where’s your ship? _

That still doesn’t tell him anything, doesn’t mean she’s coming with them. Maybe she just wants to come to say goodbye in person. But maybe… He sends the docking bay number and gets nothing back for eleven minutes that last about a lifetime.

_ I’m outside. _

Leenik yelps and leaps out of the way as Bacta bursts out of his room and sprints to the landing ramp. He slows down at the top, trying not to look too desperate, but he still rushes down fast enough that he nearly trips over his own feet. Sian’s standing about ten feet away, looking up at the ship. There’s a duffel bag at her feet and a satchel slung over her shoulder, and Bacta takes a deep breath.  _ It doesn’t mean she’s coming. It doesn’t. Maybe she’s just stopping by on her way somewhere else. It doesn’t… _

It’s not enough to convince the stubborn hope twining around his ribs, making it hard to breathe. Sian looks down as he approaches and gives him another one of those small smiles. “Nice ship.”

“Ah. Yeah. Thanks. Got it a few months ago.”

She nods and looks up at the ship again for a few long moments. “A few weeks,” she finally says, and for a second Bacta feels like he’s going to fall over. “I’ll see how it goes for a few weeks, and then… I’ll decide what I want to do.”

“Okay,” he says, as the reality of it sinks in. She’s staying. She’s coming with them, she’s going to help, and sure she’s only agreeing to a few weeks now but that’s something. It’s a chance. No--it’s a start. “Okay, yeah, that’s--that’s great. I--Thank you. Seriously, you have no idea how much this means.”

“I’ve got a bit of an idea,” she replies with a smirk and gestures at her head.

He laughs and clears his throat. “Right. Well. Come on aboard. I’ll give you the tour, show you where you can stay, introduce you to everyone, probably not in that order at  _ all _ …”

Sian chuckles and grabs her bag, then follows him up the ramp onto his ship. And Bacta doesn’t feel right or okay, not entirely. But he feels better. Like maybe things will turn out all right--not only for the Rebellion, or even only for Tamlin. But maybe for him, too.


End file.
